Konami Pre-E3 Press Conference

This year, Konami decided to get a jump on the competition by getting their press conference recorded and broadcast a few days before E3 actually begins. According to Shinji Hirano, President of Konami Digital Entertainment, America, Konami wanted everyone to be able to see their press conference without having to attend the E3 Conference since E3 is an event that is closed to the public.

The press conference began with an introduction by Hirano, who takes the opportunity to thank everyone on behalf of the Japanese people. He also briefly mentioned the 30th anniversary of Frogger and 25th anniversary of Castlevania. At which point I started feeling extremely old as I remember the first iterations of both games.

Here are the highlights of that press conference:

Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater for the 3DS

MGS: Snake Eater is a tribute to the long-running Metal Gear Solid series. This new game was designed to fully showcase the features of the 3DS hardware. There is a cool photo camo feature using the 3DS built-in camera that you can use in-game, as well as a fully incorporated gyro sensor. The trailer also has a cameo appearance by an old friend (hint: he’s green and dinosaur-ish).

PES 2012

It’s a soccer title. I don’t really like sports games, so I don’t have anything here. I watched the trailer and still wonder how people can actually play sports games. I just… don’t… get it.

Never Dead

This is one of the games that gets me truly excited. This game boasts something that has never been done in gaming before: the character you play is 100% immortal. And that’s even without a cheat code! The game, which was created in England by the Japanese and European Konami teams, is about a demon hunter who became immortal 500 years ago (this story is outlined in the trailer). The really cool thing, though? He can rip his limbs off and use them in battle. Yes, he can take off an arm and use it against his enemy. I’m pretty sure that’s never been done in gaming before. Just WOW. I can’t wait to try this one out.

Silent Hill: Downpour

After a little bit of discussion about the new Silent Hill: Revelations film, we learn a bit about the new game in the series: Downpour. The game starts with the protoganist being involved in a prison bus crash. He escapes and experiences the creepy world of Silent Hill that we’ve become familiar with. This game looks to be the scariest yet. Also, there’s a guy that looks and sounds a lot like Kevin Bacon in the trailer – can anyone confirm if that’s him? Because that would be major awesome.

Also, Hirano, said: “Further on down the line, we’re going to take Silent Hill to places it’s never been before.”

I say: “Ooooooohhhhh….”

Of course, no E3 press conference is complete without the surprise announcements and Konami had two they wanted to share with the public.

Transfarring

It’s a weird name, but so was the Wii, and look how well that took off. Transfarring is basically the technology to transfer saved games from console to handheld and back again. And in the future, it was intimated that you may be able to use it with a PC at some point, as well. And I’m actually surprised no one has come up with it before. This is such a simple idea that every gamer can use, it’s shocking that it took us until 2011 to hear about it. The first game to allow this will be Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker for the PS3 and PSP.

HD Collection Editions

Konami’s other big announcement involved new HD editions of two of its most popular series. They made a point to mention that these are not games being run on an emulator, but that these games have been optimized and re-designed for both the PS3 and XBox 360. The first will be the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, due out November, 2011. The second will be the Zone of the Enders HD Collection, which will be released in 2012.

Contra?

At the end of the press conference, there’s the Contra logo and the following words: “They’re coming.”

Watch the entire press conference below, as well as the Konami game trailers: